Earlier this month Google announced that in June 2023, it will begin to remove the following attribution options from Google Ads and Google Analytics 4: first click, linear, time decay and position-based.
This means that any new conversion actions that are set up after this change, will not be able to use these attribution models. Going forward data-driven, last-click and external attribution will be the only available choices.
Then, as of September of this year, Google will switch any old conversion actions using these models (first click, linear, time decay and position-based) to use the now recommended data-driven model, which became the default option back in 2021.
Google says that these models do not have the intelligence, accuracy or flexibility to cope with today’s customer journey, which is why data-driven is now the default option. Data-driven uses Google’s artificial intelligence to understand and therefore assign the conversion according to the touch points along the consumer journey. This allows advertisers to determine which campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads have contributed to a conversion and therefore had the greatest impact.
Google says:
“Data-driven attribution is now the most-used attribution model for conversions used for automated bidding in Google Ads, resulting in a decline in the overall use of rules-based models. Today, less than 3% of Google Ads web conversions are attributed using first click, linear, time decay, or position-based models.”
If you’d rather not use data-driven attribution, you’ll have to opt for the last click option, as it will be the only other one available (aside from external attribution). When Google automatically changes your rules-based conversions to data-driven you’ll have to log in and manually change them to last click.
If you want to know more about data-driven attribution, and find out if it could be the best option for your account, check out: https://browsermedia.agency/blog/what-is-google-ads-data-driven-attribution/
